Super-shoes are running shoes that combine a stiff carbon-fibre plate with a thick layer of lightweight, highly responsive foam, a design popularised by Nike's Vaporfly from 2017. Together they store and return energy and reduce the muscular cost of running, improving economy by an estimated 4 percent — enough to have driven marathon and distance records sharply downward.
Both are combined events that crown the most complete all-round athletes, scored on standardised points tables that convert each performance into points. The decathlon is the men's event: ten disciplines over two days — 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m on day one, then 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and a closing 1500m on day two.
Pick two names from this sport’s all-time list. The larger number in each shared stat is highlighted.
| Stat | Usain Bolt | Carl Lewis |
|---|
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Super-shoes are running shoes that combine a stiff carbon-fibre plate with a thick layer of lightweight, highly responsive foam, a design popularised by Nike's Vaporfly from 2017. Together they store and return energy and reduce the muscular cost of running, improving economy by an estimated 4 percent — enough to have driven marathon and distance records sharply downward.
Both are combined events that crown the most complete all-round athletes, scored on standardised points tables that convert each performance into points. The decathlon is the men's event: ten disciplines over two days — 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m on day one, then 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and a closing 1500m on day two.
Not in an official record-eligible race — yet. The men's world record is Kelvin Kiptum's 2:00:35, run in Chicago in 2023. Eliud Kipchoge did break two hours, running 1:59:40 at a specially staged event in Vienna in 2019, but it does not count as a record because it used a rotating team of pacemakers, a pace car with a laser and other assistance banned in normal competition.
The objective in athletics could not be simpler: run faster, jump further or higher, or throw an implement a greater distance than everyone else. What makes the sport rich is the variety of ways that objective is pursued and measured. In the running events, the winner is whoever crosses the line first, timed electronically to a hundredth of a second and separated, if necessary, by photo finish.
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